One Breath
by LostinOblivion
Summary: What do you know about pain? Warning: Character Deaths


"You're hurting I get that, believe me, Anthony, I understand, but this isn't the way to make it better." Emily pleaded over the phone with their current HT, Anthony Richards, a 28 year-old whose brother died in a car accident.

"You understand? How the hell could you possibly understand how I feel?!" He screamed back at her, clearly pissed at her perceived presumption.

"Because I've been there!" She snapped at him, tired after hours of his whining, before calming down and continuing. "A year, three months, four days ago, I was exactly where you are right now I could tell you right down to the minute when he died. For the longest time I felt like I died with him."

Cheryl watched Emily, concerned that this might be too personal for her. She, along with the rest of the team had a front row seat to what Emily went through when he died. It was hard for all of them when he died, but for Emily, well, let's just say, none of them knew how close the pair had gotten. So she watched Emily carefully now, and could see in her blue eyes that she was reliving that day in her head right then.

**_One Year, Three Months, and Four Days Ago_**

"_We can help you if you just come out, we'll help you get justice for Gabriel, alright?" Matt coaxed the HT over the phone line. Holed up in a bank, all Simon Jones wanted was justice done on the cops that accidentally put a bullet in his four year-old son._

"_Why the hell should I trust you, you're a cop?" Simon asked._

"_I'm not a city cop, none of us here are. We're FBI and we can make sure your son sees justice." Matt looked to Emily for any helpful hints, instead she mouthed to him that he was doing good. _

"_How do I know you people won't shoot me if I come out?" Simon asked._

"_Because we'd much rather take you in alive, it looks better to our bosses." Matt told him._

"_Alright, I'll come out, but don't cross me man." The HT warned him._

"_Nobody is going to cross you, just come out nice and slow, with your hands in the air." Matt told him relieved after a six-hour negotiation. _

_They saw the door slowly creak open and Simon cautiously stepped out, one arm wrapped around a hostage, right hand holding a 45-caliber handgun to her temple. HRT began slowly moving in, and Matt hands in the air stepped out just as slowly, soothingly speaking to the HT._

"_Hey Simon, didn't we say hands in the air?"_

"_I don't trust pigs, even FBI pigs." He spit at Matt._

"_Okay, well if I have these guys back off a little, will you let that nice woman go?"_

"_Yeah, maybe." _

"_Okay, Frank guys, back it up a bit, give Simon here some room." Matt told HRT, gesturing for them to back up, as he continued watching Simon. "Alright, now how about you let her go?"_

"_I can do that." Simon said, making to let the frightened woman go, but instead swinging his gun toward Matt and pulling the trigger three times, before ducking and shooting at the rest of HRT, letting the hostage run away. _

_Momentarily shocked after the first shot, HRT didn't get any shots off until Simon got off his second. His was only hit after his third, and shot back at them before collapsing, the ducking hadn't helped him avoid many bullets. _

"_Had to take out one pig." He spit at HRT as he lay bleeding to death._

_After the barrage of gunfire, Emily and Cheryl tore off toward Matt, praying that he would be alright. This was on of those occasions where the negotiators weren't wearing vests, and as they approached, they could see his blood spilling out of him. Emily got to him first, after practically sprinting, and immediately fell to the ground beside him, pushing her hands onto his wounds, hoping to stop the bleeding._

"_Matt? Matt? Come on, look at me." She pleaded with him._

"_Damn that hurts." He gagged out, his eyes opening after the initial shock, and the tiniest spatter of blood landing on his pink lips._

"_Hey, it's okay, you're going to be okay." She whispered to him, ignoring Cheryl and Frank as they looked on and waved over the paramedics. _

"_Easy- easy for you- you to say," he coughed at her, "you wer-weren't shot."_

"_Excuse me ma'am we need to get to him." A paramedic urged Emily, gently easing her toward Cheryl and Frank, as they began to work on Matt. _

_Frank grabbed her shoulders and steadied her, as she shakily got to her feet, trying to keep out of the paramedic's way. Cheryl looked on nervously, all three completely ignored the man bleeding out not too far from Matt. _

"_Alright, he's as stable as he's going to get, we're going to take him to Saint Mary's." The paramedic explained, as they pushed the gurney toward the ambulance, and pushed it back down to ground level before loading it on. _

"_Uh, can I ride with you?" Emily asked, eyes never leaving Matt._

"_Yeah, get in." The paramedic still told her before shutting the doors and jumping into the driver side. _

_Cheryl sighed, bringing a shaky hand up to cover her mouth, before finally surveying the scene before her._

"_You okay?" Frank asked her, knowing it probably wasn't the smartest question._

"_No." she said shortly. Cheryl and Frank stayed on the scene another twenty minutes, until the HT had been taken away similarly, and the hostages sent with agents to be interviewed. _

_Frank drove Cheryl's SUV allowing Duff to come later in theirs. He also knew the young man wanted to pick up Lia before going to the hospital, knowing the analyst would want to be there too. _

_When they arrived they were pointed down a hallway, where Emily sat in a bright orange plastic chair, blood covering her hands and bare arms, and soaking parts of her tank top and jeans. She sat, her elbows resting on her legs, hands covering her mouth and nose, eyes staring blanking at the wall across the hallway._

"_Have they said anything so far?" Cheryl asked startling her. _

"_Uh, no, nothing yet." She told them briefly before staring off at the wall again. Cheryl watched her briefly before sitting down next to her, and staring at the same wall. Frank settled for pacing the hallway, looking like G.I. Joe in his HRT gear._

_Emily was too busy to notice how out of place the tactical expert looked fully clad in the hospital. She was repeating a mantra over and over again in her head, convincing herself that it would be true. It had to be true. Matt was going to be alright, Matt was going to live, Matt was going to walk out of that hospital in a couple of weeks, whining about the food and cursing the smell of antiseptic. He had to be, because Emily couldn't imagine him any other way. She couldn't comprehend the thought that he might die._

_This was why when the doctor came out ten minutes later, she expected him to say nothing more than that Matt was in pain, but would be fine. He didn't._

"_I'm so sorry. We couldn't stop the bleeding, there was just too much damage. We couldn't repair it quick enough. I'm so sorry for your loss."_

_Cheryl turned to Emily, concerned about her reaction, though she'd been remarkably composed through the ordeal. This proved to be a good thing as Emily's legs just seemed to give out, and she would have hit the floor had Cheryl not been prepared. Instead Cheryl caught her, and the two sunk to the floor, tears already pouring down Emily's face. _

_Cheryl held her friend, who normally so strong, seemed so incredibly fragile, as she sobbed, her head buried in Cheryl's shoulder. Emily's sobs were quiet, but her pain was visible in the shaking of her body. Cheryl, tears beginning to escape her own eyes, began to rock Emily, as she would a child, trying in vain to comfort her. _

_Frank just looked on in shock. This wasn't happening. Matt couldn't be dead, hurt yes, but dead, that just wasn't fathomable. But the site in front of him said otherwise, as he saw a negotiator whose strength he'd come to respect, crumble. When he made eye contact with Cheryl for the first time since the doctor had come out, he saw how hard it was for her to keep it together. He retreated briefly outside the hospital, and pulled his cell phone out, dialing a familiar number._

"_Gonzalez." Duff answered, interrupting his conversation with a very worried Lia._

"_You can stop speeding Duff." Frank settled for that, he had to work his way up to saying it._

"_What? What's going on?" Duff was clearly confused, and Lia looked at him nervously._

"_He, uh, he didn't make it." Frank said quietly._

"_What?" Duff wasn't sure he heard right, that couldn't be true, right?_

"_Flannery's dead." He said louder, using Matt's last name as a buffer to the truth._

"_I can't- that's- I don't- when?" Duff finally stammered out, still in complete disbelief. _

"_The doctor came out about five minutes ago and told us."_

"_How'd they take it?" Duff asked concerned._

"_Cheryl's holding it together, but barely, and Emily…she's a mess."_

"_Jesus, uh, we're about ten minutes out." Duff told him._

"_Then I'll see you in ten." Frank said hanging up, and heading back into the hospital._

"_What?" Lia demanded at Duff._

"_Matt just died." Duff went for being completely blunt, needing to say the words out loud to make himself believe them. Lia looked at him completely mortified._

_When they arrived Cheryl was sitting on a chair, her head hanging, and Frank stood nearby, watching her. Emily was nowhere in sight. _

"_Where's Emily?" Lia asked quietly, stepping toward them, almost afraid to break the silence._

"_With Matt." Cheryl picked her head up long enough to answer. Lia fell into the seat beside her, as Duff went to stand with Frank._

_After about twenty minutes of crying Emily had picked herself up off the ground and asked to see Matt. Frank flagged down a nurse, who led her to room where his body still lay. _

_Emily walked in apprehensively, knowing that when she saw him, she couldn't go back. The truth would become all too real. Walking slowly over to the bed, she pulled the chair close, and grabbed his hand. It was still warm. She had expected it to be cold, before realizing his body temperature wouldn't fall that fast. _

_Matt was half covered with a new sheet, not yet soaked with his blood. His eyes were fortunately close, had they been open, Emily surely would have lost it again. Now she settled for kissing his hand, and laying her head on his chest, wrapping her other arm around him. _

_Sometime later Cheryl and Lia came in and gently pried her from Matt, so that the hospital personnel could take him down to the morgue. They spent the next twenty minutes trying to convince her to let one of them go home with her, or let them call someone else. They didn't want Emily to spend the night alone, it would be too hard, and they were worried._

_In the end Cheryl dropped her off, leaving Frank, Duff and Lia to go find someplace to get plastered. If there ever was a night for it, they decided it was tonight. But instead of having Cheryl drop her off at her apartment, Emily gave her different directions, pointing her toward Matt's apartment instead._

_Assuring Cheryl for the hundredth time that she would be alright, and call if she needed anything, Emily dragged herself into Matt's apartment. She didn't want company, she didn't want meaningless consolations, and she sure as hell didn't want to talk. She wanted Matt. That was it, the one thing she wanted at that moment, and the one thing she couldn't have. _

_She stood in the middle of his apartment looking around blankly, before sliding down against the back of his couch. She stayed there staring blankly at the whitewashed wall in front of her for nearly two hours. Not a single tear slipped down her pale cheeks. It was only after those two hours that she glanced at herself and realized she was still covered in his blood. _

_Ripping off the clothes as if the fabric was burning her skin, Emily left them in the hallway, hurrying off to the bathroom. She cranked on the hot water, and after vomiting once in the toilet, jumped inside, letting the burning liquid wash all his blood off her. She watched hypnotized as the pink tinged water swirled down the drain. _

_She still hadn't shed another tear. Instead she went to the bedroom, and put on a pair of Matt's sweats, before retrieving her clothes from the hallway. She opened his apartment door and took the elevator down to the basement, prying open the old heavy door. She approached the tall, dirty incinerator without any apprehension, and threw her blood-covered clothing into the red-orange flames. _

_Once back in his apartment, she had a glass of water, shut off the lights, and crawled into the bed. Tonight she laid on the side he always slept on, inhaling the scent of his pillow, knowing that the scent probably would have been just as strong in her apartment. Curling into the fetal position, still inhaling his scent that surrounded her, she felt the chill of his absence, and the tears began to fall for the second time that awful night._

_Matt was dead. She felt the burning ache of loss settle in her stomach, and she knew then, that it would never leave. _

**_Present Time_**

"Let me guess," Anthony, the HT said tauntingly, "you're going to tell me that it will get better in time, it will hurt less as I begin to accept it."

"That's what they say, but it's bullshit." She told him.

"Really, you're not going to starting spouting about how I'll learn to simply appreciate the time I had with him?" He spit at her.

"No. The time you had wasn't enough; it could never be enough. And the pain doesn't go away just because another day passes. It stays with you forever, dulling slightly when something makes you smile." She was done being nice, playing cutesy with this guy. He wanted the truth, she'd give it to him.

"And how does it feel the rest of the time?" He asked her, his taunting tone nearly gone.

"Most of the time it's just this ache that never goes away. But…but when something reminds me of him, or something we did together, it feels…it feels…I don't know how to describe it because nothing else even comes close to hurting that much."

"It never stops hurting?" Anthony asked with trepidation.

"Never."

"Then how the hell do you live each day?" He demanded, desperate to know her secret of coping.

"He'd be pissed if I gave up." She said simply.

Anthony was quiet for several minutes, and Emily was about to ask if they lost him, when he suddenly spoke again, "I want to talk to you."

"You are talking to me Anthony." She said confused.

"No, I mean in person. I want you in here with me." He was beginning to sound upset.

"I can't really do that Anthony." She told him.

"I'll give you the hostages. You come in here and talk to me, and I'll give you the hostages." He told her eagerly.

Emily clamped her hand over the mouthpiece, and looked toward Cheryl, who clearly didn't like the idea. Mitch Benson, Emily's new partner was giving her a look that clearly suggested that she was crazy for even considering that.

"It's not a bad option Cheryl. Well get all the hostages out, and I can talk him out in there. I did it with that kid remember, in the coffee shop." Emily willed away the images of Matt the incident brought up.

"I don't like this Emily, you're too close to this."

"I know, but I can talk him out of there Cheryl. I've never been able to relate this closely to an HT." She pleaded.

"That's what scares me."

"I was declared mentally fit six months ago Cheryl. I'm fine." It had taken a long time before Emily was able to move past Matt's death enough to come back into the field. Cheryl knew how hard it was for her, and now she was worried about just that.

"Alright," Cheryl finally gave in, with few other options what else could she do. "Be careful Emily."

Emily nodded at her, ignoring the incredulous look on her partner's face, before turning back around and speaking to the HT. "Ok Anthony, I'm coming in, but you have to let the hostages go first."

"Not before I get you."

"How about half and half. Half before, and half after I'm in with you."

"Fine." She could here him turn away from the phone and direct people to leave, and minutes later saw them pour out. Tossing down her earpiece and gun, she headed into the building. Seconds after she disappeared inside, several more people ran out.

"So then, lets talk Anthony." She said coming close to him.

"It really never stops hurting?" He asked her, the beginnings of tears evident in his eyes and voice.

"Not for me. I wake up missing him everyday, and go to sleep aching to feel him beside me."

"I'm sorry Emily." He told her, his voice genuine.

"For what, you didn't kill him?" She said.

"Not that…this." He pushed his 33 Smith and Wesson into her ribs, and squeezed the trigger twice.

Emily felt the bullets rip through her, fear striking her, and bringing with it the oddest of revelations. She was afraid to die, she'd been the opposite for so long; maybe she was beginning to accept Matt's death. Crashing to the floor, she placed a hand over one of her wounds, bringing the scarlet-tinted hand up to her face. It was the same color as the day Matt died.

Shortly after shooting her, Anthony pushed the gun up against his own ribs, clenching his eyes shut against the fear, before firing into himself. He fell down beside her, and both could already here the pounding of dozens of feet as HRT moved in. As the door burst open, and they began storming in, Anthony looked to Emily, and brushed her leg to get her attention.

Slightly dazed with shock Emily looked over curiously.

"You shouldn't have to suffer Emily. You shouldn't have to hurt so much." He told her, before his head lulled back to an easier position.

"Shit, Lehman! Lehman! Come on Emily…" Frank knelt down beside her, and swatted her face, trying to get her glazed eyes to turn to him.

She looked at him slowly, the blood-loss of two point-blank bullet holes making her weak.

"Hey, you stay with me." He told her firmly.

"Frank! Frank!" Cheryl called running in, and then seeing Emily, "Oh god."

"She's going fast Cheryl." Frank said gravely, as Cheryl knelt down with him, taking Emily's blood soaked hand, memories of another awful day floating back.

"Emily? Emily, come on, you have to keep breathing. I won't watch both of you die." Watching Matt die had been awful enough, but losing two of her closest friends and the best negotiators that she'd ever known would be next to impossible.

Emily offered weak smile, and tried to whisper something that Cheryl couldn't make out. She leaned close, her ear right at Emily's mouth.

"I can feel him," her voice weak and raspy, Emily spoke the words Cheryl would never forget.

Seconds later Emily stopped breathing, and try as they might, the paramedics couldn't bring her back.

* * *

_Authors Note: My Nickelback-muse refused to let this idea die and had me writing 2 and 1/2 straight hours on this one. I hope you all, uh, enjoyed doesn't really seem to be an appropriate word here, but you all get the idea. Thank you for reading, and those of you who do, reviewing. Now I have to go and spend the rest of my semester writing journalism for my internship._

_By the way, March 30th? Are they serious with that, because that sucks._


End file.
